


Dinner and a Movie

by chaineddove



Category: Nana
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-21
Updated: 2008-12-21
Packaged: 2017-10-31 10:22:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/342952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaineddove/pseuds/chaineddove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Yasu and Miu spend Christmas Eve in, some year between the “past” and the “present” of the current manga arc.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dinner and a Movie

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the fact that Kentucky Fried Chicken is a popular food at Christmas in Japan ^_^.

What feels like a thousand years ago, when she was in high school and trying desperately to fit in, Miu dreaded Christmas. She had a round, child’s face and a long unstylish ponytail down her back. She was flat-chested and awkward and short, and everyone treated her as though she had never developed much past the age of twelve. Other girls bragged about boyfriends and lovers, flaunted gifts of jewelry and candy and flowers, and she looked down at her desk and wished for the day to end. She preferred Christmas Eve to fall on a weekend; she stayed home and refused to look out of her window. She nurtured her unhappiness, her invisibility, by crying herself to sleep with the absolute belief that no one would ever under any circumstances want to spend this sort of day with _her_. 

When she grew up and learned to use her face to her advantage, it stopped feeling like such a tragedy. Christmas was mildly uncomfortable but no longer felt like the end of the world. She used the day to work, and when she happened to be caught out at night she would walk home with her eyes disinterestedly on the sidewalk, her whole posture giving the impression that contrary to popular belief she _didn’t care_ in the least. She was not-quite-famous and she had her share of offers; she went out with some of them, got very dressed up, combed her long hair out over her back, sat at the tiny tables at the windows of expensive restaurants like the couples she had envied. It turned out not to mean much, after all. She felt a little like she was doing it for the sake of appearance – if anyone looked up at that brightly lit window and saw her there, they were meant to feel jealous and miserable, the way she once had. Christmas, just as most holidays, was nothing more than a show.

She certainly never expected to end up where she is now, stretched out on the couch with attractive, successful, steady Takagi Yasushi, spending the holiday in a truly ridiculous robe printed with snowflakes – a one-time gift from Hachi – while sharing a bucket of fried chicken and watching a sappy American movie on television.

Yasu is the sort of person who takes life as it comes. Nothing fazes him; he is like a solid stone wall standing up easily to anything the world throws against him. He is calm in times of trouble and collected in a crisis. He looks easy with himself in every possible situation. Miu has never been like that. She is anxious by nature and she over-thinks everything; sometimes she has a hard time remembering to breathe. It is not as bad now as it has been in the past, and she has mostly learned to present an unruffled façade to the world, but there are some people who are not fooled by such simple trickery.

Yasu is one of those people. She knows she is not fooling him, but he never says anything. Instead, standing by his side, she feels some of his calm enveloping her. Little by little, she grows calmer, more resistant to the things that try to upset her equilibrium. Little by little, at his side, she grows brave. She doubts he has ever thought and obsessed about this day the way she has. He never worries about small, silly things; he naturally gets through them with the sort of poise Miu has always envied. With him, even this seems somehow cool – the robe, the movie, the takeout, the little Christmas cake waiting in the refrigerator.

His jeans are frayed and there is a throw partially covering his shoulders. Her bare legs are stretched across his lap. They both have greasy fingers. She knows very well this sort of food is terrible for her, especially considering she is approaching thirty and has been warned repeatedly about her metabolism and the concern that it may betray her. Somehow, just at the moment this doesn’t matter in the least. The slightly crispy, overwhelmingly greasy chicken seems to her to be the most delicious food she has ever tasted. She reaches for a third piece and she doesn’t _care_ that it’s her third piece; he fishes a drumstick out of the bucket and offers it to her because he must have realized she likes them. She smiles at him, completely unconcerned about greasy lips and hands and her silly snowflake robe, and he smiles back.

“I have no idea what’s going on anymore,” he admits easily, flicking a glance at the screen. They have been drowsily paying half-attention at best.

“These sorts of movies are always about the same,” she responds with a small shrug. “Any moment now, it will start snowing, and somehow everything will turn out all right after that.” She has always assumed that people probably find this convention comforting; it is a nice daydream to assume that everything becomes all right so easily.

Onscreen, the first flakes fall and she shakes his head. “The voice of experience,” he says, his tone amused.

She might have found a statement like this offensive, once. Instead, her lips curve up in a superior little smile and she tells him, “Of course. I must have done at least a hundred Christmas snow scenes.”

“I prefer this,” he tells her. His tone is still easy because making such an admission is easy for him.

Because being with him has made her brave, she shifts her weight to tuck her feet under her and rest her head against his arm. “Me, too.”


End file.
